Community Based Rehabilitation

Our Work in Community-Based Rehabilitation

The Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Project, including the Orthopedic Workshop and Physiotherapy Centre (OWPC), continued to serve people with disabilities in Faryab province for its eighth year.  The CBR outreach into rural communities complements the services provided by the Orthopedic Workshop.

Direct support to two of the Disability Committees was completed-they will now function independently to identify, refer and support people with disabilities in their area.  This allows the project to expand to new areas in the province.  It is planned that two new districts will be added to the outreach work in 2013.

In January, a disabled female bench worker was hired for the workshop, and four disabled male field workers were recruited from their own communities, increasing the percentage of people with disabilities serving in the projects to 48%.  The newly hired female CBR field worker gave a significant boost to the work among disabled women in the villages, especially in the area of vocational rehabilitation for disabled women.  Seventeen disabled women participated in vocational training this year.

Disabled women also received literacy training.  On June 2, the local Deputy Project Manager (DPM) became the Project Manager (PM) and the Administrator assumed the role of DPM.  They both took a five week long advanced English course and attended two modules of the IAM Management School (IMS) in Kabul on Leadership Style and Management to better equip them for their new roles.  They have functioned well in their new responsibilities in the absence of expatriate staff.

In 2012 CBR…

• 710 clients (137 male; 573 female) received physiotherapy
• 2003 clients (1709 male;294 female) received assistive devices
• 641 clients (450 male;191 female) received specially made orthopedic appliances
• 13 villages have Disability Committees (DC), identifying and referring people with disabilities as needed